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Monday, 24 October 2016

Tracing comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko back to its likely origins

ESA's Rosetta unmanned deep-space probe may have made comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko its final resting place, but researchers are tracing things back to where it all began. Using statistical computer analysis, astronomers Mattia Galiazzo and Paul Wiegert of Western University in Ontario, Canada have reconstructed the orbit of the comet as it's changed over hundreds of thousands of years. Their findings indicate the comet is a recent visitor to the inner Solar System and had its origins out in the Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto.